Posts tagged “Judd Winnick”

It’s been a hectic week at the store, getting ready for our big ol’ 35th Anniversary celebration. The boss put a lot of money into getting the building repainted and the store looks almost brand new. We’ve got a local comics publisher coming in on Saturday to do a meet and greet. I’ve got copies of my first book on hand to sign for anyone masochistic enough to want one.

But the books still came in as usual, and I have opinions, as usual.

Avengers # 5:

Okay, I’m getting the feeling that this book just isn’t for me. The storyline seems typically Avenger-y and all, but the artwork just doesn’t do it for me, and I feel like my sensibilities are better suited with Bendis’ New Avengers or over at Avengers Academy. I feel like Bendis is trying to write in a manner consistent with the old Avengers tone, but he just isn’t pulling it off. I think this title would be better under the direction of someone like Dan Slott or Mark Waid. I’m basing that entirely off of what I’ve seen on their other work, so maybe I’m just pining, but I’m not sure.

Fantastic Four # 583:

Jon Hickman has been doing some really good FF work. He’s easily the best fit for the title since Waid and Ringo left a few years ago. His proto-philosophical scientific jargon and interwoven narrative patterns fit the book like a Kirby-drawn glove. His work thus far has been building to this issue and I can say with ease that this could be the defining FF run of the decade. Also, Doom. It’s easy to get Doom wrong and Hickman seems to be giving us a Doom that we’ve been clamoring for. Can’t wait to see how this all pans out.

Justice League – Generation Lost # 10

I feel like this series is way too decompressed. Every time I see the solicits and I fail to see “final issue” I wonder how long they can drag it out. It seems until they cross paths with every last entity in the DCU. Seriously. It’s not a horrible book. I like the ideas behind the story, I just don’t care for the obvious filler. It’s like Dragonball Z’s Namek saga. It just goes on and on and on, obviously leading to something, but by the time the climax comes, we’ll all be numb and immune to it’s effectiveness.

Power Girl # 16:

At least this time, we don’t get shoehorned into Generation Lost at random. We see that there is an endgame in place for the events that happen to Power Girl’s civilian life and the interpersonal drama feels organic and appropriate. Winnick seems to handle the characters in a way where everything seems like a seamless transition from where they were previously. There hasn’t been a dynamic tone shift in character portrayal the way I expected. He’s writing a very consistent book, fumbled only by the occasional intrusion by the Generation Lost plots.

Shadowland Moon Knight # 2:

I’m getting fatigued by the whole Shadowland thing, admittedly, but this has been a good mini-series and I’m really digging it. Chicken-Khonshu aside. I still can’t get over how much that guy looks like a giant chicken. The reveal at the end of the issue was pretty telegraphed, but I still enjoyed the issue. I really do want to see how they resolve all this in the next issue.

Thor # 615

The long awaited arrival of Matt Fraction on Thor begins with his typical flair for dialogue setting up what looks to be an important status-quo changing event for Asgard. The whole time Asgard has been on Earth nobody bothered to ask the question of what happened to the space that Asgard once occupied. Fraction seems to want to answer that question with a battle between mystical creatures that will offer some good therapeutic violence for Thor and his brethren following the Siege of Asgard.

Fraction seems to have a handle on Thor’s psyche the way he did with Tony Stark’s and he definitely has a way of setting the stage for things to come. The first issue does take some time to get rolling, but Fraction has a handle on how to work a slow burn when it comes to working a narrative and whatever he has planned will most definitely be interesting, if he holds true to his usual calibre of writing.

Uncanny X-Men # 528

It looks like we’re going to be seeing a lot of intrigue when it comes to Emma and Namor. I didn’t think Namor was going to be sticking around here due to his own series starting up, but it looks like he’s going to be a major part of the things to come.

Emma is dealing with her issues with Sebastian Shaw, who I suspect will stick around for a while to raise his profile to coincide with the release of the new X-Men First Class film. Kitty Pryde finally gets some real face time besides being shown in her little bubble, which is fine by me because I love Kitty almost as much as I love Dazzler, WHO IS ALSO IN THIS ISSUE.

So, yeah, good book.

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And that’s it for this week. Need to prepare for the sale at work. Where’s my name badge?

I think it’s common knowledge around these parts how much I love the Batwoman driven Detective Comics title. And while a great deal of that love comes from my unabashed love of J.H. Williams III’s wonderful artwork, just as much of it comes from writer Greg Rucka, who has turned a character who could have been a throwaway token lesbian into someone fully developed by subtle characterization and organic growth.

Now the news has broken out of Wondercon that Greg Rucka will be leaving the title and focusing on work outside of the comic industry. I’m not going to rant and rave about how disappointed I am, because as an artist I understand that if doesn’t want to work within someone else’s system, under someone else’s mandate, and would rather let his mind work freely, he should be allowed to do so and commended for having the strength to do it. The main crux of this little article is meant to illuminate what I believe to be a major problem with the DC system, namely, the manner in which their writers are promoted as an entity.

Look at the way Marvel handles their writers. Names like Bendis, Brubaker, Fraction, Slott, etc. are treated like they’re members of some holy pantheon. They put their writers up on a pedestal in such a way that even if we have never heard their names before, the marketing forces us to sit with mouths agape in awe. One only need look at the way Quesada pushed the rotating teams of writers on the Amazing Spider-Man title as an example of how Marvel sells the writer just as much as they do the book itself.

And DC does the same thing, to a point. But my main problem with DC is that at this moment, with Rucka exiting, it’s easy to see that DC doesn’t promote their talent roster the same way that Marvel does. I will be the first to admit that DC has just as many good writers as Marvel, if not more. The difference is the way in which they tier them. DC has Morrison and Johns at the top, with Stracynski joining them after getting little fanfare during his little run on Brave and The Bold. But where is the hype for people like Matt Sturges, who is knocking it out of the park with JSA All Stars? Where’s the love for Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray? People will claim that these names don’t sell books, but that’s my entire point. Marvel has an entire marketing machine built around making their writers, ALL their writers, seem like the cream of the crop. You don’t think people would be consistently buying JSA All Stars if DC ran to Wizard every month telling people how important the work he’s doing there will be at some point? If they splattered editorials all over the internet proclaiming him to be the next Geoff Johns? You bet your ass!

I’m afraid that DC is going to rely on the same “established” writers they’ve had on their books for the last several years, like Winnick and now Robinson, who has fallen so far from his wonderful work on Starman to the point that I can barely read any of his work. JT Krul has been getting a lot of high profile gigs but they’re doing nothing to inspire consumer confidence in him as a writer. The same goes for all the new blood that seems to be working their way into the system. In this regard, DC really needs to take a page out of Marvel’s handbook and start working some marketing mojo.